


Remember Gordian?

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Should Never Have Existed [19]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, Demons, Dragon Age Quest: Here Lies the Abyss, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Flashbacks, Graphic Description, Mild Gore, Mind Games, Non-Canon Inquisitor (Dragon Age), The Fade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-14 13:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15389871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: As a party of companions that includes Blackwall, Dorian, Cassandra, a diplomatic rogue Hawke, Loghain, and a non-canon Inquisitor ventures out into the Nightmare's realm, the demon decides to remind the Inquisitor's companions of their encounter with Gordian, a Venatori infiltrator that manipulated the Freemen of the Dales, so that a seed of a poisonous thought is planted in their minds. Perhaps, like Gordian, this Inquisitor cannot be trusted? After all, he also was a Venatori before magically manifesting himself at the Conclave. And not just any Venatori either.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Since there only are so many ways in which I can repeat myself, please consult the summary of the entire series and/or the previous fics in it, so that the premise of this AU becomes a bit clearer.

They cannot see the creature, not yet, but it would be foolish to deny that its presence has left them unaffected. They can sense it in the very air of this place, of this pocket of raw Fade where they have been thrust in the midst of a breathtaking, heart-clenching plummet down to their doom, when the Inquisitor opened his burning palm, fingers twitching and bleeding green light, and ripped a rift in the midst of dusty nothingness that would have otherwise swallowed up their scattering bones. An act of desperation on his part. Like so many other things he has done.

 

And now that they are here, sheltered in the Fade from the blazing battle fires of Adamant and the collapsing walls in the wake of a dragon's screeching, hurricane-like flight, they have their... host to deal with. The demon of nightmare, the coiling darkness that permeates every jagged, emerald-veined stone and every swirl of the dense, swampy green fog.  The entity that watches their every step, its burning glare heavy on their hunched backs and aching shoulders like an unseen yoke. And as if spying on them was not enough, as if they were not sickened already by the unease pooling like tar at the pit of their stomachs - sometimes, the demon taunts them.

 

It calls to them out of the bog-like void, its voice deep and drawling, stretching slowly like the thickest greenish-black oil paint, every drop soaked in malice.

 

It prods Hawke, and cackles as his brown skin glistens as bronze would, filming with cold sweat, and insists that his wife and sister will die, just as his mother did. Ashen-grey corpses in dust-grey wedding dresses with blindly grey eyes. Corpse brides for some mad mage or other - for there are plenty of mad mages out there, and there always will be. Because nothing that Hawke did to stop them has ever mattered.

 

It creeps behind Loghain, breathing heavily into the back of his neck till he is forced to glance down at his hands. Hands that suddenly appear to turn bright crimson, as he passes by a slab of feverishly pulsing corrupted lyrium, and the light in the Fade subtly shifts. There will always be traces of crimson on these hands, crimson as the splatter across the golden armour of Maric's son, crimson as the flickering, choking glow of the unheeded beacon. There will always be traces of crimson, and nothing will wash it away. Not the oath of a Warden, nor the love of poor, foolish Surana, who simply does not know ant better than to befriend monsters.

 

It flicks from Loghain to Blackwall, from one grizzled warrior to the next, from one Grey Warden to another - but wait... Blackwall is nothing like a Grey Warden! The demon savours these words, holding them over his slightly bowed head like a cup of poison; and when the invisible drop oozes out, and scorches Blackwall's face and chest, he shudders and, suppressing a fleeting grunt of pain, grits his teeth so fiercely that he almost unhinges his jaw.

 

It teases Dorian with its mock confusion, wondering who exactly it is seeing. The younger Pavus - or perhaps, his father? They are so alike, after all; each nothing but  a stage in a millennia-long eugenics project. Each nothing but a building block that ought to be used to strengthen the family's legacy - and should be content to do so.

 

Dorian throws up his head, not allowing himself to become submerged in the reddish whirlpool of memories of the familiar figure at the corner of the Gull and Lantern, reaching pleadingly out towards him, while the air around him seemed to turn to a veil of razors, and he could scarcely breathe with the revived pain of betrayal.

 

'That is rather uncalled for,' he says, piecing his composure together with barely a seam visible to an outsider - with such idle languor that he might as well have been telling off a mildly annoying tipsy house guest. Unsatisfied with his retort, the demon switches its attention to the second mage amongst the six mortal companions, and the second Tevinter.

 

He is known in the waking world as the Herald of Andraste; the great Inquisitor. But he and the demon both know that the title is stolen, just like the Mark upon his hand. Stolen twice over. Taken from a thief by another thief.

 

There was another Herald before him. Trevelyan. A southern Circle girl, who is still out there, fighting demons by the side of her Qunari lover, and Hawke's little elven wife, and who knows what other ragtag misfits that have skittered over to the Inquisition's banner. The mortals no longer remember the timeline when she carried the Mark; even the Elder One has no idea that she used to be his enemy - but the demon stores so many discarded memories in the Fade. So many half-erased what-ifs. The demon remembers, just as this 'Inquisitor' remembers, how he hunted the Trevelyan girl down, how he lured her into a trap, promising to hand over the mages that he had enslaved upon the Elder One's orders; how he cast that spell of his, a Fade-green burst in the centre of the Redcliffe castle's throne room, and how time came undone.

 

The plan was to travel back into the past, and to prevent Trevelyan from interfering with the Elder One's plans - preferably from ever being born. Just in case. But the spell only took him as far as the explosion at the Conclave, and all he ever achieved was to replace the girl as the bearer of the Fade-infused scar from the Elder One's orb. And as the new servant of the southerners' cause.

 

He could have returned things back to how they had been meant to be, could have smoothed that wrinkle in time, by allowing another demon, Envy, to shape itself in his image and bring the Inquisition, and the whole world, to its knees before the Elder One, turning the imperfect mortal plane into a convenient platter with an unending feast for all those who are hungry in the Fade. Or, at least, by surrendering to the Elder One when he came to pluck him from the smoking ruins of Haven. By extending his Marked hand freely and swearing that he was no rival to the rising god, unknowing or otherwise; that he could be his servant, as fate had intended in the first place, and wield his accidental powers to weaken the Veil for his master so he could walk the Fade and seek the throne that stands waiting for him.

 

But on both these occasions, he fought back; on both these occasions, he claimed that he had changed, repented, become too absorbed by fixing the world to ever turn back again. That he is Venatori no more. But is he? Is he truly? The demon reminds him, again and again, that it does not believe that. That no-one should believe that. He is no hero of Thedas, this old magister from Tevinter, this scheming cultist who transported himself to the Conclave to wreak death and destruction; he is nothing but a bloodthirsty slave-driver, out of place without his red-hooded Venatori uniform. He may have - clumsily - donned an Inquisitor's disguise, but he will fail to keep it up forever. Just as he failed to produce as worthy heir to his bloodline; just as he failed to push for reform at the Magisterium; just as he failed to keep his own family together. Just as he failed to fully cure his son of the Blight - because those silly little potions he brews in his makeshift laboratory, consulted by Warden Surana through sending crystal, are not enough, and never will be enough. He never will be enough - not when he flails so comically to thrust on a shoe that does not fit. Not when he tries to be something he is not. A good man, a good father, a good Inquisitor.

 

'You are not yourself like this, Alexius,' the demon murmurs, its voice closing round the magister's straining throat like a silken noose. 'Why do you insist on keeping up the charade? Why do you insist on suppressing your true nature? Nature that is just like mine... Cunning, cold, manipulative... And so very, very powerful if you just embrace it'.

 

'Thank you, I have experienced that "power" in my visions in Therinfal,' Alexius snaps, as his chest heaves and his voice cracks. Those cracks are quick to smooth over, however, and eventually he manages to sound as calmly indifferent as Dorian.

 

'Terrible narrative, pathetic attempts at gaining "shock value". Zero scarves fluttered in shock out of five'.

 

At the end of his little... reference to a tawdry mortal book, he even has it in him to exchange a glance and a smile (a weak, thread-thin smile, but a smile nonetheless) with the last member of the little group. Seeker Cassandra. The one who trusted him least at the beginning - and ended up becoming his lover.

 

The fabric of the Fade, being sensitive as it is to mortal emotions, becomes streaked with soft trails of brilliant golden glitter when these two are near each other. The rich, honeyed residue from so many nights spent in each other's arms, bodies fitting together like two matching fragments of a jigsaw puzzle, cheek nuzzling at the curve of the other's shoulder, fingers tightly interlaced. And from so many busy mornings, rushing to leave on a mission, hands reaching for scattered gear, crackling telekinetic magic lifting up armour pieces that the warrior is looking for, neither of the battle comrades needing words to guess what the other needs. And from so many quiet afternoons - brief, refreshing windows of effervescent serenity between one battle and the next, when the wounds are inspected and healed, and inside jokes are exchanged, causing bouts of laughter that warms the chest like wine, and a rare moment is stolen away to read together, or solve one of those astrarium puzzles, or ride on horseback wherever the guiding thread of a silver creek might take them, talking all the while, or simply take in the way the boundless plains shine under the sun in the sturdy embrace of the gigantic, porous, many-coloured rocks on top of which they have made camp. And from so many sweltering, hazy evenings, whether back at Skyhold, or in a cozy tavern in the middle of nowhere, or among the glittering ribbons of some wild waterfall in a desert oasis, it doesn't really matter; half-open lips brushing, searching, catching and releasing, drinking in yet never sated; scarred, weary bodies coming alive next to one another, both in need of reminding what it means, being caressed with a knowing, careful touch; slurring voices mingling into one, whispering delirious snatches of half-formed somethings, rushing one after the other to mirror the rush of their hands, the rise and fall of their hips.

 

Amata, he calls her. Cara mea. And so many other words that he once thought had died with his wife.

 

He is calling her that even now, with his mind, his gaze, his faltering touch - even as the demon tries to break through to her soft, fluttering heart that is beating jerkingly beneath that armour, and says to her that her Inquisitor is a fraud, and her Maker a lie.  


He is calling her that, and she knows that he is, without him even needing to speak a word - and this knowledge, this certainty, only makes the annoying sticky residue of their love glow brighter.

 

But even the sweetest honey can turn bitter. Even the purest pleasure can devolve into stagnation and decay. And the demon has broken enough minds to know how to set off the process.

 

'Remember Gordian?' it says suddenly, louder and more demandingly than it has ever spoken before.

 

The question makes Alexius, Cassandra, Blackwall, and Dorian stumble, while Hawke and Loghain slow down, exchanging confused blinks.

 

A cue for the demon's fearlings to begin closing in.


	2. Chapter 2

Gordian. Of course they remember Gordian. For them, his name stands out among the endless litany of villains the Inquisition has put into the ground. Because in his case, this name was not just an item on a list of threats to remove and then check off as 'dealt with'. _Gordian_ was not just an item on a list.  
  
Gordian was not just a silent watcher on top of the bristling, spiky fortifications in the heart of the Exalted Plain. Gordian was not just a cunning schemer who stood and waited and pondered his sinister calculations, with his hands thrust behind his back, and with his impeccably white, puff-sleeved Orlesian attire and traditional full-faced mask, dark-gold to complement the elaborate patterns along the rim of his vest, blending into a blurry, blinding spot in the oppressive light of the festering afternoon (accentuated by the few, constantly shifting shadows, which were tinged purple in the aura of the protective magical barriers that hugged his little fort in several sizzling rings).  
  
Gordian was not just a challenging mage adversary, of a kind that the Inquisition agents had fought a plenty - something that usually takes dodging a volley of explosive arcane bolts and eluding the grasp of whatever 'helpers' that the hostile spell binder might decide to rouse to his side (in Gordian's case, those were snarling, ragged arcane horrors, which hovered over the fort's haphazard flooring with their split-edged yellow toenails almost scraping against the wooden planks).   
  
Nor was he just the regular source of subsequent teasing banter. Even though the Inquisitor's inner circle still recollects sometimes, with meaningful looks and head shakes and snorts into a cupped palm, how the gigantic airborne mage tome that their foe was using in battle (with every sheet about the size of an entire fabric cut that went into Dorian's tunic) zoomed up to Varric, either by its master's command or by some kind of unnatural, inexplicable instinct of its own, and hit him square in the stomach before he could finish carefully aligning Bianca's aim with the glowing red mark that Cole had helpfully traced Gordian's heart.   
  
The impact, from what they remember, had such force that the poor dwarf bent over, lost balance, and fell right onto the open pages, spending the rest of the fight flying to and fro on top of the magic book, like some adventuring prince from a Rivaini folk tale would fly on an enchanted carpet. A memorable twist to the battle, to be sure - and yet, there is still more to Gordian than any of these anecdotes about the travels in the Exalted Plains.  
  
No, Gordian was - still is, in their minds - the cloying stench of dead bodies, stockpiled in a specially dug pit, fighters of Celene and Gaspard all mooshed together, with their wiry, muddy-brown limbs entwined in an endless grizzly pattern, any individual features erased off their faces by the greasy, grabby paws of decomposition, and any distinctive heraldry they might have had on their dented, rusting armour, obscured by the rustling dappled carpet of slinking insects, green and red and yellow and black with a touch of iridescence.  
  
Gordian is the dreary, draining aura of forbidden magic, intended to draw in demons and tether them to the dead soldiers, turning them into an unstoppable force, an army unlike any other, never tired yet always ravenous. Gordian is the veil of intangible but omnipresent murk, which hung over those morbid pits as densely as the rippling wall of the corpse-eating fly swarm, up until it was hastily dispelled by the Inquisition's mages - pale and panting and wobbly on their legs, because magic like that has a way of crawling under your skin, stilting your breath and making your blood pound in a hot, infected pulse.  
  
And most importantly, Gordian is the haunting reflection in the widened, pin-pupil eyes of so many stunned, speechless Freemen - the deserting soldiers from both Orlesian armies that he had assumed command over.  
  
He had told them that he was one of their own. He had sworn to them, even as some among them were unconvinced by his kind of... northern-ish accent, that he was a former Imperial officer.   
  
He had bought them over with a tale of his past. Of his trials as a disillusioned veteran who could no longer bear the wounds inflicted on his conscience.  
  
He had talked on and on about his shame over all the atrocities he had committed against his fellow Orlesians, whom the powers that be had labelled the enemy just because those hapless sods had had the misfortune to be recruited by the opposing side of the conflict. And he had talked on and on about being haunted by the weeping shades of all the other innocents, whose once cozy, pretty little homes were now reduced to lopsided carcasses, blue like the scattered pieces of a songbird egg's smashed shell, torched and chewed up into rubble by the marching army just because they had had the misfortune of being in the way. He had talked on and on about his shame - and his desire to do better.  
  
He had promised that, under his leadership, the Freemen would escape the crucible of war, and build a new life for themselves. Away from the squabbling nobles who only remembered their existence when it was time to collect gold for their coffers and fresh meat for their legions. Away from the rampaging demons that were pouring from the Fade unchecked while the mortals were too busy tugging the Orlesian crown away from each other. Away from the fire and screams and needless deaths.  
  
He had tempted them with peace, with shelter, with salvation, and the Freemen followed where he beckoned them, their hearts huge in their chests as they swelled full of hope, their blood pounding so loudly, stirred into a gleeful melody by his promises that they could scarcely hear anything else.  
  
But then the Inquisition came, and tore the mask off Gordian - in all senses - and he was ultimately exposed as a Tevinter cultist, sent by the Elder One to make certain that the southern Empire was properly weakened and easy to beat down and grind into nothing under the Venatori's heel.  
  
He had feigned regret and repentance and noble ideals, and then callously used the Freemen to pave the way for his master, labouring tirelessly to turn the life of Orlesian soldiers into a maelstrom of chaos, and to stock up those body pits for the demonic forces.  
  
It is not surprising, really, that the demon should bring him up now. The parallels are so obvious that they come as a slap in the face.   
  
Alexius also poses as a southerner: to all but the inner circle, he is Gideon Trevelyan, former enchanter from the Circle of Ostwick, and uncle to the very girl he once plotted to kill. Alexius also admits that it is still an arduous struggle for him to repel the ghost of former self - a merciless maleficar who will stop at nothing to please his Blighted master. A rather persistent fellow, as he mockingly refers to him, since his memories of Therinfal have a way of always coming back and slithering their way in between all of his other nightmares: mostly of Haven going up in a gigantic, roaring red-gold pillar, woven simultaneously from physical flames and from the searing screams of all the people calling to him for aid; or, a bit less frequently these days, of his son Felix losing his humanity, shred by decaying shred, to his disease, subdued but still lingering, till he eventually turns into a shambling, mindless ghoul.   
  
Alexius also insists that he has repented, that he has nothing left that might entice him to scamper off back to the Elder One. He seemed especially pained by his regrets during the journey to Skyhold, when Dorian confronted him about joining the Venatori cult, and about harnessing the wildly unstable results of their old experiments with time manipulation to assassinate Trevelyan.   
  
'Feel free to think me a monster for what I tried to do,' Alexius said to him in a hollow voice, leaning heavily against the mage staff that he was using like a crutch at the time, still recovering after his crawl through the snow in the wake of the avalanche that had mangled and buried Haven. 'I would be in full agreement'.  
  
Dorian found it hard to speak to him again for days after that. But then, a moment came when Solas' plan to 'scout to the north' came to fruition, and the Inquisition forces shook the purplish, watercolour dome of the heavens with their thundering triumphant outcry, in the rush of elation upon discovering their new keep, so stunningly majestic on a glimmering sunset mountaintop. And, amid the total, all-consuming, infectious revelry, the younger Tevinter sought out his former mentor and shook his hand, and said, with an uncertain smile,  
  
'Rather nice development from almost being crushed by a dragon, isn't it?'  
  
The moment he heard that, Alexius seemed to... sag down slightly, like a clump of snow melting away in the sun. And the next thing Dorian knew, he was being hugged by him, and showered in a torrent of breathless 'I am sorry's; and in a moment or so, the hug was also joined by Felix, who had been watching his father and friend apprehensively from a few paces' distance, frozen up against the flopping canvas background of his tent and absently reaching to take the hand of Bethany, the younger Hawke, who had sought out the Inquisition even earlier than her brother, and had proved a source of most heartwarming companionship to the unlikely Inquisitor's son.  
  
A scene like that would be sure to cast strong doubt on any notion that Alexius has been faking his good intentions this whole time; that, no matter all he has been through, no matter how selflessly he has been protecting the people of Thedas, he is still a Venatori at heart, and is just biding his time before he reveals his true colours. And yet...   
  
And yet, as the demon mentions Gordian - whose very name sounds eerily similar to both Alexius' real name and southern alias - the reminder strikes his companions like a crossbow bolt straight through the heart.   
  
They are not quite ready to turn on him, to back him in a corner and interrogate him, like the Chantry forces once did when he dropped out of the Fade at the bottom of the crater that had wiped out the Temple of Sacred Ashes. And perhaps they never will do that. But the demon's question is enough to give them pause - and that is all that the demon needs.  
  
As the Fade explorers stumble to a halt, countless spiders descend from the tops of the surrounding jade-tinged cliffs - which are so high up that they appear to gradually dissolve in the fuzzy folds of mist. Their red eyes flaring up like embers, their pincers clicking restlessly, their elongated bellies with rows of hardened black barbs expanding and contracting, the creatures begin to excrete long, gooey strands of webbing, which they knead with their long, knobby, twitching legs - spinning a whole tapestry, which expands at an unfathomable speed, blocking out the cliffs and the green clouds, and gaining a life-like palette of colours, perspective, and volume before the bewildered mortals can as much as blink.  
  
And this tapestry - no, this palpable, three-dimensional scenery for a demon's stage - replicates Skyhold.


	3. Chapter 3

'I swear...'  
  
Hawke draws a shaky sigh, takes a moment to recover from the sudden shift in his surroundings, with a quiet, rather child-like gulp, and finally forces himself to speak, passing his hand over his face and then tapping his fingers against some very, very woodenly textured carved railing.   
  
'Each time I travel beyond the Veil, the spirits' craftwork becomes more and more elaborate'.  
  
'Or demons', more like it,' Loghain says darkly, his hand firm on the hilt of his sword and his steely eyes cast in shade by a intense frown.  
  
Hawke makes a small, shrug-like motion, and speaks again in reply - and the longer his sentences are, the less confused and anxious his demeanour grows.  
  
That is his way, as Varric has explained to the world in his foreword to the second edition to Tale of the Champion, which followed shortly after the first, after some readers complained that some of Hawke's dialogue was unnaturally long-winded.  
  
'Surely, nobody talks like that in real life!' someone exclaimed in a fan letter - and Varric, still sore from being tossed about by Cassandra during her interrogation, sighed heavily and rolled up his eyes, and dipped his quill into his trusty inkwell, and set out to scribble his foreword, which he sent to his publisher almost literally with one foot aboard the ship to Ferelden.  
  
He made a point of doing that, of facing the dire risk Cassandra stabbing something dear to him again for having her wait - because, again, that is Hawke's way.  
  
Talking something out, building logical links, stringing one long, complex clause upon another - it all calms Hawke down even when there are rumbling storm clouds gathering over his curly head. According to his dwarven friend, the only time when this did not help was after his mother's gruesome murder, when the concerned Aveline and Merrill walked into his mansion to find him huddled up in a dimly lit room, clutching his head and coughing out long, hoarse, tearless sobs over some official letters he had been trying to compose for the sake of gathering his thoughts.  
  
This time, however, even though the echo of the demon's taunts must still beat against his skull and chest - 'Merrill will die! Bethany will die! And you will be too powerless to save them!' - Hawke does not fail to summon the words to help himself keep afloat.   
  
While speaking to Loghain, he gradually reassembles himself into the suave, well-read, articulate Messere Roy Hawke that the great and the good of Kirkwall's Hightown were used to seeing at the threshold of his mansion in the evenings. The same Messere Roy Hawke that would rarely be seen in anything but the finest, meticulously tailored purple brocade, bowing forward with a polite smile on his face, and beckoning his guests in, for a dainty buffet, a dance, and some pleasant discoursing with a glass of wine clasped carelessly in one's hand, little finger stretched out, while the artists that he sponsored - Fereldan mavericks, mostly, and quite a few alienage elves - unveiled their creations before the guests. For playing host to illustrious company was something that his noble-born mother had groomed him to do ever since he was a little boy, much to the amusement of his apostate father, who had spent more nights in his life in the corner of a stuffy, goat-smelling barn, uninvited, than in a proper bedroom.  
  
'Some cultures believe that, to paraphrase a poet, nothing is demonic but thinking makes it so,' Hawke intones calmly, as if he is back at one of his art salons again.   
  
'The supernatural creatures of the Fade - or the Beyond, as my wife's people call it - merely extract what is contained in our own minds and present it to us for various purposes'.  
  
Loghain does not have a lot of patience for him, though. He seldom does. While born and raised in Ferelden, the younger man carries himself too much like an Orlesian for his liking (to think, Hawke even had his little sister seek shelter from the mage war under the wing of 'his dear friend', Madame Vivienne, the Enchanter of the Imperial Court).  
  
'Well, here the purpose is clearly malicious,' Loghain cuts Hawke short, edging away from the same railing that he is tapping. 'And we can argue philosophy once we are actually free of the illusion'.  
  
'Are you sure it even is an illusion?' Blackwall asks, taking a slow glance about him. 'Maybe we fell through another rift and wound up back at the headquarters?'.  
  
The question certainly appears rather... justified. After all, the Fade explorers never did see the demonic spiders do their web-spinning; and even if they did, the image was hazy and dream-like, and instantly got chased away into that corner of the mind where the most obscure memories dwell, bumping into one another like soapy blobs of... something, which will only give you a headache if you attempt to focus on them or describe them in coherent words.   
  
Whereas the stage that the demon set, without them knowing, is nothing if not realistic: the interior of the rotunda with the Skyhold library has been replicated with a convincing meticulousness. Down to the last splinter sticking out from the bookshelves. Down to the last dot and dash of ink on the neatly stacked paperwork that rises like parchment towers over the desk where Helisma the Tranquil dissects the research samples brought to her from the field, and then describes them in minuscule, print-like handwriting, complete with sketches of demon eyes floating in jars of alcohol like monstrous bubbles, and of dragon scales slashed across so that their inner structure becomes visible, layered as the crust of the earth.  
  
Granted, Helisma herself is absent, as is anyone else who is usually seen about the library: be it Grand Enchanter Fiona's charges waddling slowly with heavy heaps of research tomes, or agents racing back and forth on errands, or Varric's frenzied fans little short of thrashing at walls when they find out that Hard in Hightown is out of stock again.  
  
But that could always mean that they have returned in the middle of the night, when the motley population of Skyhold Keep is sleeping, for the most part. This version seems more and more feasible by the second, especially as Blackwall steps towards Hawke and leans down, to peer into the scantily furnished, incomplete room with frescoed walls that Solas has claimed for himself.  
  
From where he stands, Blackwall can clearly make out the narrow couch where the elf sleeps - pardon, delves into the Fade - and that couch definitely has some sort of bundle lying on it, white and bumpy, as if a person has curled up underneath a sheet.  
  
'Look!' Blackwall points downwards. 'That looks like Solas! We could wake him up and ask him what in the name of the Maker's... uh...'  
  
He glances uncomfortably at Hawke, who raises a curious, flawlessly trimmed eyebrow at him.  
  
'What in the name of the Maker is going on. How much time has passed. Whether we won at Adamant or not. That sort of thing'.  
  
'We can only count on truthful answers if it really is Solas,' Dorian points out. 'What if a lesser demon was deprived of good taste enough to disguise itself as an apostate hobo? I recommend checking the bookshelves first; no matter how realistic their illusions, demons always seem to have trouble with replicating the contents of books. It's always either a mishmash of letters or an ominous message that should not be there. Remember that one time when I was still a student and...'  
  
His last remark is obviously meant for Alexius - and yet, when he seeks out his former mentor with his gaze, he is nowhere to be seen. Dorian crinkles his forehead, trying to remember when he last spotted Alexius - but all his thoughts suddenly turn into those soapy blobs, slipping out of his reach, bubbling into a nauseating murky film. And whenever he forces himself to pin the blobs down before they can ooze away, a spear of headache passes through the top of his skull, wriggles its way through the soggy brain matter and pokes out somewhere at the nape of his neck (one of the perks of training in necromancy: the supply of gory similes is both sizeable and within easy reach).  
  
The same affliction, it seems, befalls all of Dorian's other companions: almost in perfect unison, they glance wildly around them and then begin huffing to themselves and cringing with pain.  
  
'Where is Gereon?' Cassandra says weakly at length, letting out a short, throaty breath before she can even properly finish the question.  
  
The answer, which she almost fears receiving, comes, quite unexpectedly, from the top of the stone staircase that leads from the library to Leliana's rookery.  
  
'So you have proof of my true intentions, do you, Spymaster? Proof that I have been tricking my advisors, twisting the results of their oh so admirable efforts, to play into the Elder One's hand? Quite perceptive of you. And perhaps, at an earlier stage of the mission, it would have been both perceptive and dangerous. But now, it matters little. The Inquisition is almost ready to welcome its one true master'.  
  
The voice is his, unmistakably.  
  
The same voice that streamed, river-like, in a gushing monologue when Loghain finished boasting about his daughter, his gaze wandering dreamily somewhere past the dancing golden sparks of the campfire, and it was his Tevinter companion's turn to boast about his son.   
  
The same voice that quivered softly, touched by emotion like the thrumming lute strings are touched by the hand of a bard, when a hesitant, sombre-faced visitor came to Dorian's favourite library alcove after the confrontation with Halward, and called him brave.  
  
The same voice that, not so long ago, blurted out a breathless 'I love you' to Cassandra. Ardent, sincere, and at the same time, filled with disbelief that this was actually happening; scared almost - but in a way that was so very different from the fluttering first 'I love you's of younger men. Because it still came as a struggle, caring for someone like this again, after Lady Livia Arida, 'beloved wife and mother' (as though that empty cliché could ever describe how blessedly happy her family had once been) had gotten torn out of life by tainted darkspawn claws, with nothing remaining but a perfectly, woundingly still form laid to rest on a traditional funeral dais, the pulsing glimmer of illusion magic moulding into a waxen likeness of the deceased; a shell that, like so many things in Tevinter, served to conceal how disfigured her remains actually were.  
  
It is the same voice - but none of them (not even Dorian, who saw his mentor at his lowest, when Felix had just fallen sick and all hope seemed lost) recalls it sounding so cold.


	4. Chapter 4

He does not quite understand how it happened. How he managed to get himself separated from the others.  
  
There is so very little he can recall, so very little he can make sense of. He is barely capable of focusing his thoughts for two seconds, before, inevitably, a splintering headache sets in. As though there is some invisible colossus gripping his skull - a puny berry about to burst with the pressure at any moment, squirting gruesome juices - in between two pillar-thick fingers, like those on the hands ancient statues he and his companions would sometimes encounter, more mossy green than granite-grey or marble-white after all these centuries in the unrelenting grip of nature.  
  
Blast it. What a tangent. One might have assumed that he was - badly - narrating the story of his own misfortunes. But he very obviously isn't: narration (not that he is worthy of any in the first place) is done in the comfort of one's study, with a glass of fine brandy cupped leisurely in one's hand, reflecting the silhouettes of an enraptured audience. Very much not in the bowels of the Fade.  
  
Which is where he is right now, as he reminds himself through the cloud of pain. The damned demon must have evoked all those memories, all those over-the-top associations, on purpose. First Gordian - it just had to bring up Gordian, the bloody textbook example of a treacherous Tevinter - and now all these pointless ramblings about statues and what have you. All a ploy to distract him. To muddle his mind, while the demon, doubtlessly acting through the pack of those spider-like creatures that it likes to throw in their faces, does... something...  
  
Ah, he says softly to himself, when his mind finally clears (obviously, when it is far too late to fight back against the demon).  
  
Ah.   
  
So this is what it had in store for him. Curious trick, quite unlike anything he has ever encountered, in all his years as a Circle researcher. Rather unlike what Envy tried to do to him as well.  
  
Which is still no excuse for letting the creature's mind games  get the better of him!  
  
Alexius curses at his incompetence in a long string of hissing Tevene (colourful expressions that were on the tip of everyone's tongue when he was younger, before the Imperium's dying language slipped even further out of use, which led to people from Dorian and Felix's generation mostly contending themselves with a rather tame 'Vishante kaffas').  
  
But, a masterwork of cursing though it is, his long-winded expletive is, again, squashed like a berry by a pair of unseen fingers. The fingers of silence.  
  
No matter how hard he may try, no matter how hard he may struggle in the silence's grip, he will never make himself heard. Of course - of course he won't. For he is trapped. Gagged. Petrified. Reduced to a helpless, useless worm, looking out of a cocoon that the demon's spiders must have woven around him. He can see its texture: sticky webs crisscrossing all around him, preventing him from moving.   
  
The fabric of spider webs is spun tightly, thoroughly, in several thick layers, with but two narrow gaps at about his eye level for him to see through. The gaps, incidentally, are shaped vaguely as the ovals of human eye slits... Almost as if he is a child again, hiding with baited breath behind one of the sour-faced portraits in his father's old mansion, which had their eyes cut out for convenient spying. Or as if... As if he is watching the world through his own eyes, catching glimpses of his hands moving in front of his face, going up and down in imperious gestures, kneading the trailing, glowing clots of magical energy.  
  
Except that those hands are not his: his are plastered flat against his ensnared body, he can feel that. And he most definitely is not controlling their motions with his brain, as one ought to.   
  
The hands are very much like his, true; as the left one shoots up before the eye slits, Alexius makes out both the green flash of the Anchor (damn, even after all these months in the new timeline, he still cannot quite get used to the sight) and the jagged inflamed scratch from his recent (very undignified, even dubbed 'Vint cat fight' by Bull) scuffle with Erimond. When seen from a distance, they might well fool a... third party; but this close, Alexius does not take too long to realize that the hands, just like the inside of his prison, are glued together from many-coloured web threads. The hands are part of the cocoon. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if the entire outer layer of the webbing is shaped like him. A macabre three-dimensional portrait, replicating his features to the last detail, with him bound by sticky threads to the reverse side, a weakened, powerless stranger in his own body, forced to watch while this... creepy cobweb doll does Maker knows what under his name.  
  
Somehow... Somehow the thought of that makes his blood run even colder than when he saw his shadowy twin pin the people he cared about on throbbing crimson spears of blighted lyrium, and cackle as the world burned, in a future where Corypheus succeeded. Somehow, this is worse than what Envy showed him. Far, far worse.  
  
Gritting his teeth, pushing down the nauseating ache that has begun to fill up his windpipes, Alexius attempts to lurch free, to burst out of his self-shaped cocoon like a very old, very battered, very unsettled butterfly... But the webs still hold him with the same steely tightness, and his voice is as muted as before... While the cocoon's voice (curse it all, the demon has even given the thing a voice!) rings out with a frustrating clarity.   
  
It addresses a hooded woman locked within a shimmering green ball of time-freezing magic. Her face is unclear, twisted, as if seen through rippling water - but he can guess that this is Spymaster Leliana. Or... Or a shade of her, more likely. Another doll knitted out of disgusting, gooey yarn. Alexius is fairly certain that, once the time spell fades, he will be able to see the same crisscrossing webs forming the surface of her porcelain skin and the strands of her red hair.  
  
In the meanwhile, however, she is still immobilized by magic, in the middle of what looks like her rookery - also moulded out of coloured webbing, no doubt, convincing as it may appear at first glance. And the cocoon keels speaking to her, spinning (fitting word choice) a usual monologue about Corypheus' rise. Loud and jeering... And oddly warped, squeaky, unnatural... Is this a side effect of demonic magic, or does he really sound like that to other people? Please, please let it be the former - this way, when his companions catch up with him, they will realize that something is amiss.


	5. Chapter 5

It... It is not the former, after all.   
  
Even though his voice sounds off to Alexius himself, it is not off enough to raise suspicion. Or... Or maybe the demon has entranced the others even stronger than it did Alexius, making him the only one who is aware of what is going on, who can see the webs this blasted illusion is made of (to add up to his torment, of course).   
  
Either way, when the false rookery finally echoes with five sets of footsteps rushing up the stone stairs from the library, and five familiar figures stumble in, shoving at one another in their haste, the faces that come into view of the eye slits are distorted with horror and wounded disbelief.  
  
'What are you doing?!' Warden Blackwall roars, even more bear-like than usual, pulling his sword from its sheath with a loud swoosh.  
  
Before he can charge in, however (which, to be frank, Alexius would have been grateful for, bumpy as his relationship with the southerner has been: perhaps the Warden's blade would have cast off the illusion by chopping the webs apart), Dorian grabs him by the wrist.  
  
‘I ‘m more certain than before… This... This can't be real!' he cries out, eyes wide. 'I refuse to believe otherwise! The man before us is either an apparition or under mind control!'  
  
'When I first offered you to join the Venatori, you also refused to believe that what you were hearing was real...' the cursed voice murmurs, while Alexius screeches silently within the cobweb skull, with Dorian's fearful face leaving a searing imprint in his real heart,  
  
'You are right! You are right! Well done! This isn't me! Can't you see the webs? Please, please, dear boy - can't you see the webs?!'  
  
'You refused to believe...' the cocoon goes on, and Alexius can swear that there is a subtle chuckle running through its stupid, stupid voice like a constant undercurrent. The thing is bloody gloating.  
  
'And yet. My offer still stands, by the way. For a limited time - until a count of three, in fact. One... two...'  
  
'Messere, kindly listen to reason,' now it is the Champion's turn to protest, and he does it with flawlessly honed politeness, as always.  
  
A fine young man, this Roy Hawke. Living proof that the south, too, can produce gentlemen.   
  
Even after a scant handful of encounters, Alexius has grown rather fond of him - though he would understand if the feeling was not mutual. The Champion is very protective of his sister - as he should be - and cannot be too thrilled by the idea that she is being wooed by the son of a man from the same 'ilk' as the one who enslaved and tortured his best friend (even though Felix is far from your stereotypical magister brat, thank the Maker). The demon will be certain to use even the slightest hint at distrust to its advantage - but so far, Hawke appears ready to give Alexius the benefit of the doubt.  
  
'Bethany told me that the only reason why you joined the Venatori in the first place was because you had run out of ways to cure your son! But now that the Inquisition is helping you with that, surely, there is no sense in...'  
  
'The Inquisition?! I never trusted the Inquisition!'  
  
No. No. No, no, no!   
  
The Cocoon's snarling reply makes Hawke stagger back, as if he has been slapped - and each next word sends him clinching, deeper and deeper, until nothing is left in his green eyes but acidic anger.  
  
'I have been indulging your little knife-eared mistress - your bumbling pet rattus as part of my plan to bide time. But it is pointless to pretend now. All of our fussing about in my so-called laboratory is truly like the scurrying of vermin compared to what my true master has offered... And as for the other rattus... Surana...'  
  
The eye-slit perspective shifts to the other Warden, Loghain, who is as eager to lunge at Alexius as Blackwall, but has his path blocked by the firm, strong arm of Cassandra... Cassandra... Amata... You still have faith, don't you? Don't you?  
  
She... She may not have faith any more - not when the cocoon finishes taunting Loghain.  
  
'Surana will serve Corypheus, just like Clarel was supposed to serve; bound to his will; absorbed by the light of Tevinter's beacon. Her precious Vigil's Keep will follow the fate of Adamant... And who knows - maybe, as a little practice before crushing the southern upstart of an empress, my master will spill the blood of a little doggie queen. Oh, I know - I will suggest to him that he compel Surana to do it... How does that sound to you?'  
  
It is at this point when Cassandra's shoulders droop, and her arm falls by her side, no longer preventing Loghain from jolting off, with his shield raised up so that Alexius can only see his eyes, blazing like white-hot metal amid a mane of greying raven hair, and with his blade aimed at his adversary's chest.  
  
Like with Blackwall, he will welcome the blow; he will welcome the chance to cast off the constricting webs. But the liberating hack and slash never comes: the artificial arm of the cocoon soars up in a showy flourish; the air grows crisp and dry - and, one splash of dazing blue light later, Loghain finds himself encased in a tall slab of ice, transparent enough for his figure to still be visible, his legs still bent in the knee in a now halted race forward, his hair spread out around his head in frozen coils.  
  
'I am sorry,' Alexius tells him, despite being (agonizingly) aware that Loghain can't hear him. The man is scarcely less of a southern boor than his comrade Blackwall - but at least he understands how it once felt when the only good thing left in your life was the love for your child. Another potential friendship, gone to waste because of the demon.  
  
'Felix will hate you for this, you know that,' Dorian says, his gaze darting to the ice slab and back to Alexius again. The boy has begun flexing his fingers around a spell of his own - in self-defense, Alexius understands - and his eyes are beginning to film over with tears, just as when... just as when he spilled out all he thought of Halward for trying to forcefully change his nature.  
  
No! Damn it! No! He should not have recollected Halward! Not when the demon has its hold over him! He... he should not have...  
  
'I only want what is best for him,' the cocoon says idly - which, just as Alexius feared, strikes him with the force of a heavy javelin.   
  
With Dorian thus rendered vulnerable, it is far too easy for the cocoon to stun him with a charge of lightning square in the chest. Hardly does Dorian fall, boneless as a child's stuffed toy, when the lightning forks off like a groping, skeletal purple limb, and sinks its claws into Hawke just as he in the middle of targeting Alexius with a raised dagger (a trick that, if Alexius properly recalls Varric's infamous book and some of the stories Bethany shared with him and Felix, that he used to strike a Tevinter slaver in the heart to rescue an elf-blooded child... Fitting).  
  
'You... You would raise your hand at your own apprentice?' Cassandra asks, through a tremulous gasp. 'You would... Turn your back on... on us all? For Corypheus?'  
  
Her arms are still limp, unable to wield her weapon - but knowing her, Alexius expects that, in a few moments, this initial shock of betrayal will pass, and she will carve his prison apart with her hand as steady as if she were disposing of any other godless villain. Like... Like that Gordian.


	6. Chapter 6

Out of their hapless little group, Cassandra and Blackwall are the only ones still left standing - as is the case so very often when the intrepid (and imprudent) heroes of the Inquisition throw themselves at dangers fathomable and unfathomable. Be it the maw of a dragon, with its fence of teeth and the lava-like bubbles swelling at the back of its throat, ready to turn into a sweeping torrent of flame - or the very heart of an earthquake-causing titan.. Or whatever it was they found in the Deep Roads.  
  
Cassandra and Blackwall are the only ones left standing. The latter is glowering, battle-ready, about to shoot forth like a tightly coiled spring as it unwinds - and the former, too, will soon shake off her daze, and unleash her righteous wrath on the monster who trapped Leliana, froze Loghain, and pierced Dorian and Hawke with chain lightning.  
  
Oh Maker, please let that accursed purple bolt not be lethal. Please let both of them still be alive.   
  
Alexius has not had it in him to believe in prayers for a long time - how could he, when even the much more tangible blood, sweat, and tears during the first feverish months of his desperate quest did nothing to bring his family back... But dear heavens, how it hurts to look out of this demonic cocoon's eyes and see Dorian - his apprentice, his last friend from Tevinter, his (frustratingly frivolous and secretly sincere) voice of conscience - bundled up on the floor of the illusory rookery, his eyes closed, his fingers stiff, his chest not moving. It hurts, looking on at him and knowing that it is his fault - for not being strong enough to defy the demon, for failing, again and again.  
  
It hurts - and catching sight of Cassandra's expression hurts as well.  
  
She must be about to attack - and yet Alexius is no longer mentally egging her on. He is no longer anticipating the one fell swoop of the blade as a way of opening his gate to freedom. Even if she cuts him loose, even if she sees that it was the demon all along, right now, in this moment, she must hate him - and this hate must be seeping through her whole being like poison that will taint what... what he thought they had... forever.   
  
It's as if they are mortal enemies again... back at the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes again. Or... Or worse. Because the cursed creature has had her believe that he lied to her, like Gordian lied to the Freemen. And nothing angers Cassandra Pentaghast more than being lied to.  
  
  
Will she ever forgive him for what the demon made her hear come out of his mouth? Will she ever get past the horror of thinking that he might be a traitor, a Gordian? Or... Will she even live through this in the first place? Look what the creature did to Dorian and the others... What if... What if its ultimate goal is to have Alexius watch, unable to utter a sound or move a muscle, while a hand that looks like his destroys the woman he loves?.. The woman he thought to be his second chance... Because what else is Gereon Alexius good for, if not ruining all chances he is ever given?..   
  
  
Somewhere out there, beyond his sticky bonds, that annoying voice pipes up again. Alexius can hardly hear it over his own pulse - every heartbeat a knife thrust, barbed edge dragging along his chest and down to his stomach.  
  
'All I have ever done was for Corypheus. No point denying it now. I told the same to your little Nightingale friend... Whom you shall soon join, by the way. After all...'  
  
Wait. Wait! Is the demon trying to tell Cassandra that Alexius intends to ensnare her with magic - likely torture her as well? Is it trying to hint that their... their love has been a farce? That she means nothing to him? That... That her screams of pain will bring him far more satisfaction than her screams of pleasure?  
  
That... That last part was rather uncannily specific. The demon has not gotten to that part of the taunt yet - but Alexius already knows what it is going to say... Of course!   
  
Of course! The joyful surge of understanding is so unexpected - and so alien to a creature that thrives on pain and despair - that, for the first time since he was trapped, Alexius thinks he pulls off a tiny twitch in his cobweb tethers.  
  
Their methods of mental torture might be different, on the surface at least - but in a way, Nightmare and Alexius' old friend Envy are also quite similar, in a way. The link that either demon has formed with him, when slithering into his mind, works both ways. If Nightmare could throw his thought process off-kilter, making him lose himself in a melting pot of visions while its spiderling underlings did their work, he can try doing the same to Nightmare. He can focus on the most random, the most out-of-place things, which the demon will be forced to manifest, linked as they are, thus turning this carefully constructed illusion into messy nonsense and opening Cassandra's (and Blackwall's) eyes before it is too late.  
  
Now, think, think, think... He just needs to hold on to a random image and focus on it until...  
  
The hand of a metaphorical colossus begins squirting his brains out of his head again. The fingers press on, without reprieve, without mercy; his skull comes sickeningly close to caving in under the headache's onslaught...Could it be - could it be that the demon is getting frightened? Just like Envy did, when Alexius and Cole pushed it to reveal its intentions?  
  
If that is true, then... He must not... Give up...  
  
Their mental struggle must have reflected on the Cocoon's face, because, at the back of his shattering head, Alexius can hear Blackwall breathe out,  
  
'Andraste's hairy pits, what's with all the twitching?!'  
  
'Maker...' Cassandra whispers softly after him. 'Dorian was right! He is... not himself! Gereon? Gereon! Are you in there... The real you?'  
  
Another burst of joy - like that ray of purest azure light that Cassandra summons with her Seeker abilities. The headache subsides, if only for a fleeting moment, and as Alexius' gaze falls on the vision of an entrapped Leliana, he suddenly knows where to direct his thoughts.  
  
Back when they had just completed the journey to Skyhold, and Leliana still had the unlikely Tevinter 'Herald of Andraste' under close scrutiny, one of her agents (that Charter woman, he thinks) caught him creeping about the ruined castle hallways late at night and, laying a hand on his shoulder - a gesture that pinned him to the spot as effectively as a powerful Crushing Prison spell - and politely but firmly ordered him to come with her up to the rookery.  
  
Leliana, still far from intending to go to bed (if she even had a bed) despite the late hour, met him while seated at her desk, fingers drumming a soft, innocent melody that nonetheless seemed to puncture Alexius' lungs and stomach with every beat.  
  
'The other advisors may have come to trust you, Monsieur Magister, after you stood against your former master at Haven and did not defect,' she said to him, with the unnerving calm of a Tranquil. 'And I was also beginning to get convinced... Enough to allow you to discuss the Blight cure with my dearest friend Wendy Surana... Please, provide me with an explanation of your nighttime activities that will leave my conviction unshaken'.  
  
Unfortunately, Alexius had no such explanation to offer. All he had was... The truth.  
  
'I... I thought that if... a bouquet of flowers were to appear in Seeker Pentaghast's quarters first thing in the morning, it might... She might...' he said, head downcast, his quiet, stifled voice trailing off to a mumble in places as he was struggling not to embarrass himself in front of the agent.  
  
Leliana shot bolt upright at that, and, after motioning the agent to step away, asked, with her even tone now frosted over,  
  
'Do you have specific intentions regarding the Seeker? I will have you know that neither her nor Lady Montilyet is to be toyed with. Not while I am by their side'.  
  
'I... would never... There is no hidden agenda to what I am trying to do!' Alexius stuttered, his innards clenching. 'Nor will there ever be!'  
  
He remembers bending forward to grip the desk's edge and gaze steadily into Leliana's frigid blue eyes.  
  
'I am more than aware of my... dubious position. The Lady Seeker will never accept me - and there are the feelings of my son to be considered as well, since I am a widower and cannot be perceived as insulting his mother's memory. I do not wish my... affections to be known, or returned. I just want... I just want Cass... the Seeker to be happy. And considering... her interests, this is likely to bring her happiness, is it not?'  
  
He spoke for his own benefit rather than Leliana's, really, not even hoping to win her sympathy, or even her belief. But... Something in his tone - perhaps that little quiver that he never could quite contain - swayed the unshakable Spymaster. Her gaze mellowed - so much that he could scarcely believe his eyes - and one corner of her mouth slid up a fraction of an inch, slowly followed by the other.  
  
'Give her some Andraste's grace, Monsieur Magister,' she told him, with an air that was... quite benevolent. Perhaps even amused.  
  
'It is a modest flower, but quite beautiful. And it carries a strong symbolism that she will appreciate'.  
  
Andraste's grace. That is what he orders himself to think of. With all the fervour that he can muster while that glow of joy still lingers, and the headache has been chased away. Andraste's grace. The very first flower that he gifted Cassandra, and the beginning of his and Leliana's... if not friendship, then understanding.  
  
Andraste's grace. A pearly white blossom with a crimson centre, carrying a sweet fragrance that is unexpectedly strong for a flower so small.  
  
Andraste's grace. He thinks of it, peppering a meadow like a starfield, or tucked away behind Cassandra's ear as she reads, or dried and pressed into a little crown to bookmark a page in a scandalous time of ancient Tevinter comedies that Maevaris mailed to the Inquisition at Alexius' behest, 'for research purposes'.   
  
He thinks of it long and hard, till his heart feels tightened with a pang of bittersweet pain, a precious breathlessness that still catches him unawares when he hears Cassandra say his name, or reverently pronounces hers.  
  
And, brought into being by his thought, by his profound relief that Cassandra has begun to see the demon's charade for what it is, the flowers crowd inside the bubble of magic where Leliana is... was.   
  
The hooded figure has come undone, the webs unwinding themselves, twisting and slinking away. Some of them, however, have stayed in place, growing thicker, firmer, solidifying into tree branches, which reach higher and higher with a languid creak, large blossoms springing up on their tremulous tips. White, pink, scarlet, and everything in between.   
  
Before the eyes of the two awestruck warriors and one trapped magister, demon's stage, which the spider weavers have worked so hard to sculpt into Skyhold, is rapidly reshaping itself into a forest clearing, where a mighty tree carries is fragrant blossoms towards the very heavens, where the puffs of clouds merge with the weightless sea foam of petals... And the demon does not appreciate having its work reimagined.  
  
A bloodcurdling, nauseating sensation sweeps over Alexius, as though countless worms have begun to crawl over him. The cocoon wriggles and rustles, separating itself from him - and as he falls backwards to the ground, his legs twisting themselves oddly and feeling like huge tufts of cotton wool stuffed with tiny needles, Alexius discovers that, now that they are no longer one and the same, the construct has re-knit itself into a new grotesque yarn doll. Your old boring, run-of-the-mill Terror creature. Complete with spindle limbs and a loopy mouth that extends along from a tiny, pear-shaped green head down its entire torso.  
  
'Damn...' Blackwall whispers, circling about the Terror while it straightens itself up, the last loose webs sticking into place. 'That thing... Turned itself into you...  And you were... Trapped inside it... Looking out of the eyes of a monster?'  
  
Alexius looks up from massaging his sleeping legs and shrugs vaguely.  
  
'Demonic creatures have a penchant for impersonating me, it seems. Must be because of my timeless charm'.  
  
The Terror shrieks at a glass-shattering pitch - as Terrors do; it is a run-of-the-mill one, after all - and Blackwall leaps into the fray, mouth twisted into a battle cry. Cassandra soon follows suit - but not before grabbing Alexius by the shoulders and kissing him full of the mouth, her body shaking slightly against his.  
  
'I am sorry,' she mutters into his ear, 'I... I almost doubted you... I almost hated you... I should not have... Let that comparison with Gordian get under my skin'.  
  
'The creature was very convincing,' Alexius reasons. 'And I... I could well have been a Gordian... Had I not found people to steer me to the right path'.  
  
'The choice was always yours to make,' Cassandra shakes her head, and then presses her brow gently against his.  
  
'And you would have punched me if I chose wrong,' he teases, then steal another swift kiss, and, letting Cassandra deal with the Terror, squats down next to Hawke to help him come to his senses with a healing spell.  
  
The Champion has a pulse, and it will not be long before Alexius revives him enough to let him stand on his own. Loghain will be next - that ice slab will need careful melting, so as not to accidentally harm him with the mage fire (they might be friends yet). And Dorian - who has regained consciousness on his own and is now watching the scene unfold with one eye half-open, the cheeky boy - will be getting an apology. Just as everyone else.  
  
It does not matter that those words came from a demon. He is no Gordian, and he will have everyone know that. Himself included.


End file.
